Why students interested in free markets should get their Ph.D. at Texas Tech University

If you are interested in earning a Ph.D., or if you know someone who is, I strongly recommend studying at Texas Tech University where I have had the pleasure to teach this past year. At the center of the action is my good friend, Benjamin Powell, who directs the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University. I always found Powell impressive, but over the past couple years he has shown great program building and leadership skills to launch the Free Market Institute programs. Last year they hired me and the most excellent Adam Martin, bringing the number of George Mason University Ph.D.s on campus to four. This month they hired Alexander Salter who earned his Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2014, and they may also be hiring an economist with a long affiliation with PERC and another scholar who is well known in Austrian economic circles. Stay tuned.

Here are some reasons why students interested in free markets should look into studying at Texas Tech. The university is large and growing with more than 35,000 students and a $1 billion endowment. Walk around campus and observe the architecture to the flowers as small indications of how well the university is run.

The administration is actually full of supportive people with can do attitudes that are uncommon on most campuses, and the university plans to continue to move up in the rankings. (Speaking of rankings, as a New Englander, I like how Wes Welker and Danny Amendola played football at Texas Tech, but alas the university’s football ranking was not as good this year as in other years.) The campus is also nicely situated next to a bunch of good housing, restaurants, and bars giving it a close to ideal college town feel with most of what one needs in walking distance. The people in Lubbock are also very nice and the university lacks unkempt hippies found elsewhere.

Although the university is large, Ph.D. students associated with the Free Market Institute have a strong sense of community and can get a lot of face time with professors and visiting scholars. I enjoyed teaching economics of entrepreneurship and the economics of regulation to some great Ph.D. students over the past year. Peter Boettke was the Ludwig von Mises Visiting Scholar with a couple two week visits and Joshua Hall was a Big Twelve Visiting Fellow as well. In the past year and a half we had Walter Williams and Andrew Napolitano help fill 800 person auditoriums and top scholars including Vernon Smith, Israel Kirzner and Robert Higgs present on campus. The Friday research workshop and other seminars also had many interesting speakers including Scott Beaulier, Bryan Caplan, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Matt Kibbe, Peter Klein, Robert Lawson, Peter Lewin, Edward Lopez, Bryan McCannon, Phillip Magness, Daniel Sutter, and Richard Wager. We also cohosted conferences with the Institute for Humane Studies and the Free Market Roadshow with speakers including Steve Bradley, Enrico Colombatto, John Charalambakis, and Barbara Kolm.

Powell even has a television show where he discusses the research of many of the scholars who visit campus. Of course the best episodes featured me! Drop everything you are doing and check it out.

Expect great things at Texas Tech University in the future. Congrats to Powell and others who are making all of this possible. If you are a student, find out more about the programs and fellowships here.